University of Miami, Psychology

Professional Staff

Saneya H. Tawfik, Ph.D.: Dr. Tawfik is the Assessment Supervisor of the Psychological Services Center (PSC). She graduated from the Child Clinical Psychology doctoral program at the University of Denver. She completed her Predoctoral Internship in Clinical Psychology and Postdoctoral Felllowship in Pediatric Psychology at The Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She currently coordinates the assessment training for all predoctoral practicum students at the University of Miami PSC. Her areas of specialty include Psychoeducational assessments of Learning Disorders, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Neurodevelopmental and Language Disorders.
Jill Ehrenreich, Ph.D.: Dr. Jill Ehrenreich is the Director of the Child and Adolescent Mood and Anxiety Treatment (CAMAT) program at the University of Miami. She is a researcher and clinician with expertise in treating child and adolescent anxiety disorders and depression. There are many efficacious treatments for children with these disorders. However, often these treatments never reach the children who need them the most. At the CAMAT program, we are interested in helping children and adolescents with these disorders get the evidence based treatments that can help them through both our research and clinical efforts.
Frank Penedo, Ph.D.: Dr. Penedo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine/Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Miami in 1999 after finishing a clinical internship at the University of Pittsburgh-Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship in the biopsychosocial aspects of immunology and HIV/AIDS, he joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Miami as clinical faculty in the Health Division. His work focuses on understanding how psychosocial factors such as stress, coping and personality are associated with disease processes via endocrine and immune mechanisms, and how psychosocial interventions may promote quality of life and physical health in chronic disease populations with an emphasis on cancer and older populations.
Jutta Joormann, Ph.D.: Jutta Joormann is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology. She received her doctoral degree from the Free University of Berlin and was an Assistant Professor at the Ruhr- University in Bochum in Germany. In 2002 she was awarded a fellowship from the German Research Foundation to work at Stanford University. Her main areas of interest include the identification of cognitive risk factors for depression, research on the comorbidity of anxiety and depression, and research on social anxiety disorder.
Blanche Freund, Ph.D., RN: Dr. Freund has been involved in protocol driven, well established, cognitive behavioral therapies for several years. She was the primary CBT research therapist for Dr. Edna Foa in Philadelphia for an NIMH grant studying PTSD in trauma survivors. She has treated well over 100 OCD patients with Exposure and Response Prevention and has conducted and published assessment research in this area. She has worked with agoraphobics and Panic patients at the Agoraphobia Treatment Clinic in Bala Cynwynd. There she ran a successful Fear of Flying program and recently was asked to treat a specific phobia of one of the TODAY show hosts. Over the last 5 years she has shared her expertise by conducting training workshops with our residents and to teach them protocol driven therapy interventions. She is a licensed psychologist, nurse and certified sex therapist who until July 2000 was full-time faculty in the UM Psychiatry Department. She recently left UM practice and is currently in private practice at the Brief Therapy Center. Her specialty is intensive therapy for OCD, group treatments for Social Phobia, and working with stress management. She continues to co-chair the Trauma Treatment Program at the Psychological Services Center and offer supervision for graduate students in Psychology.
Amy Weisman, Ph.D.: Dr. Weisman focuses her research on cultural and family factors that influence the course of chronic mental illness. She recently developed a 15-session treatment for schizophrenia especially designed to serve minority families coping with the illness. In particular, the program incorporates spiritual and existential components with already established cognitive-behavioral techniques to make treatment more relevant for Hispanics and other minorities prevalent in Miami. Over 20 families have participated so far, and results seem quite promising.

Therapists

Most of the therapists in the Psychological Services Center are graduate students in one of the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. programs (Child, Health or Adult track) at the University of Miami. Students typically start work in the center during the spring semester of their first year in graduate school by doing intellectual and cognitive assessments under the supervision of Dr. Saneya H. Tawfik. In their second year of graduate training, they begin to see therapy clients under the supervision of a faculty member or an adjunct licensed psychologist. They also begin to conduct more complex psychological assessments. Therapists usually commit to a minimum of one year at the center, and many choose to continue working here for several years, until they go on to a predoctoral internship to complete their professional training.

In addition to approximately 30 graduate student therapists, the center has several postdoctoral trainees who see clients under the supervision of Dr. Craig Marker. Some of the clinical faculty in the Psychology Department also see clients at the center.

Support Staff

Carmen X. Ortega - Secretary: Carmen works as the secretary at the PSC and has been working with us for the past 5 years. She helps our clinic to run efficiently and she is very knowledgeable about our services. Carmen is available during work hours to answer any questions you may have about the center.